The world’s biggest listed miner BHP said recently it would invest $400 million ( £321 million) over five years to reduce emissions from its own operations and from those generated by the use of its resources.
BHP is the biggest producer of coking coal, which is used with iron ore, also mined by BHP, to make steel in a process responsible for millions of tonnes of CO2.
At a speech in London, BHP CEO Andrew Mackenzie was due to say the company’s “climate investment program” would scale up technology to help decarbonise the company’s own operations and drive investment in curbing downstream emissions.
“We must take a product stewardship role for emissions across our value chain and commit to work with shippers, processors and users of our products to reduce scope 3 emissions,” he was expected to say, according to advance extracts of his comments.
Emissions are divided into categories. Scope 1 and 2 cover direct emissions by an organization and indirect emissions generated by power it buys to run its operations.
Scope 3 emissions are caused when a company’s products are used, for instance in steel-making or when they are shipped to customers.
